Abstract
The biological human system is probably affected by the solar and geomagnetic disturbances as well as the cosmic ray variations. In this work, the relation between the solar activity and cosmic ray variations and the cardiac arrhythmias over the time period 1997–2009 covering the solar cycle 23, is studied. The used medical data set refers to 4741 patients with cardiac arrhythmias and 2548 of whom were diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, obtained from the 2nd Cardiological Clinic of the General Hospital of Nicaea, Piraeus, in Greece. The smoothing method on a 365-day basis and the Pearson r-coefficient were used in order to compare these records with the number of sunspots, flares, solar proton events, coronal mass ejections and cosmic ray intensity. Applying a moving correlation function to ±1500days, it is suggested that a change of the correlation sign between the medical data and each one of the above parameters occurs during a time interval of about 2–3years. This interval corresponds to the time span of the polarity reversal of the solar magnetic field of this solar cycle, which always takes place around the solar cycle maximum. After then a correlation analysis was carried out corresponding to the rise (1997–2001) and the decay (2002–2009) phases of the solar cycle 23. It is noticeable that the polarity reversal of the solar magnetic field coincides with the period where the sign of the correlation between the incidence of arrhythmias and the occurrence number of the solar eruptive events and the cosmic ray intensity, changes sign. The results are comparable with those obtained from the previous solar cycle 22 based on medical data from another country.
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